


This Door You Might Not Open

by winter156



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 01:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter156/pseuds/winter156
Summary: A rush of adrenaline makes her hands shake and her breaths short; she can’t decide if it’s dread or anticipation coursing through her. The two feel almost like the same thing these days.





	This Door You Might Not Open

Awareness prickles Hecate’s skin; someone is moving through her protective wards. She looks up from her grading and knows it isn’t Ada. She would never come to her private quarters unannounced, especially not this late at night.

A rush of adrenaline makes her hands shake and her breaths short; she can’t decide if it’s dread or anticipation coursing through her. The two feel almost like the same thing these days.

The papers before her lay forgotten as Hecate feels the imperceptible shift in atmosphere the second before Pippa appears behind her. A frown creases Hecate’s face and the _not tonight_ dies on her lips when she turns to Pippa. Her refusals always die in her mouth when she faces Pippa, because her heart is smitten and stupid and it overrides her head.

Pippa stands a few feet from Hecate but she fills the entire room with her presence. She’s comfortable and easy in the space and that knowledge pulls Hecate’s frown deeper. Because Pippa doesn’t disturb her quiet solitude, she doesn’t disrupt her life…Pippa fits into it as if she’s always kept a Pippa-shaped hole in her life for her. It feels like home whenever Pippa appears.

And Hecate thinks suddenly, with Pippa’s presence filling her room, that she doesn’t want to keep doing _this_. She thinks that there’s no Hecate-shaped hole in Pippa’s life that she fills; that this thing Pippa is to her, she isn’t to Pippa.

But her mind stutters and falters at the feel of soft lips pressing into hers. Pippa never bothers with a greeting on nights like this. Her hands slip into Hecate’s loose hair and pull her closer, her mouth opens and deepens the kiss.

And Hecate’s stomach knots painfully and her hands grip Pippa’s waist tightly. She wants to cry but she bites Pippa’s bottom lip instead and changes the tempo of the kiss, hardens it, makes it teeter just on the wrong side of painful. Because Pippa has come to her with the taste of someone else in her mouth and with the scent of someone else on her skin.

Jealousy burns through her, makes her mouth hard and her hands rough. Until Hecate remembers that Pippa isn’t _hers_. It’s a punch in the gut all over again. And again Hecate thinks that maybe they shouldn’t be doing this…not when every time it feels like they’re going to war.

But Hecate wants and wants and wants. And she could no more stop loving Pippa than she could stop breathing, both would kill her. So she gentles her mouth and softens her hands and undresses Pippa slowly. Hecate ignores how her heart aches and takes Pippa to bed. She kisses her until all Pippa can taste is her. She touches Pippa until she’s rubbed all traces of anyone else from Pippa’s skin.

She opens Pippa and presses into her until Pippa can remember no one’s name but hers. Until the only name that falls from Pippa’s mouth is _Hecate_ , strained and desperate and wanting.

When Pippa pulls Hecate up and presses her down into the mattress to reciprocate, Hecate stills her hands. “It’s okay,” her voice is low. She trembles with need and she can smell herself in the space between them. Hecate knows Pippa can smell her, too, because she furrows her eyebrows and her eyes look down at her wetness before moving back up to her face. Hecate sees a flash of something—hurt maybe—in Pippa’s eyes but she can’t stand the idea of Pippa touching her simply out of a sense of duty. And tonight, her heart is already hurting enough without adding to it. She doesn’t look Pippa in the eyes. She just rearranges them until she’s spooning Pippa.

She doesn’t smoke, but in the quiet moments after sex with Pippa, Hecate wonders if she shouldn’t take up the practice. It couldn’t be any more self-destructive than what they’re actually doing together.

She sighs and tries not to let her mind think too much about Pippa’s sudden appearance and about her utter lack of explanation for the traces of someone else all over her. Hecate knows that won’t come until the light of day, tomorrow, maybe, when Pippa has had a chance to collect herself. Tomorrow, Pippa will mirror or surreptitiously reappear and pretend she hasn’t spent the better part of the night in Hecate’s bed. That’s when Hecate will hear about the reason behind this midnight tryst, but nothing regarding their time spent together.

Hecate thinks—for the thousandth time—they shouldn’t be doing this, _she_ shouldn’t be doing this. Not when it’s so devastating to her heart.

Her eyes are closed and she’s half asleep when Hecate feels the shift in the mattress. She almost whispers _stay_ , but the word gets stuck between her heart and her mouth. Theirs isn’t _that_ kind of relationship...at least, not this part of it. They reconciled decades of separation but Hecate can’t help but think they somehow broke each other further.   

She considers ignoring Pippa’s movement, considers pretending sleep. But the pull to see Pippa is too much, she shifts and opens her eyes. She watches Pippa slip out of bed. Her eyes follow the graceful movements of her body as she picks up her discarded clothing and dresses slowly. Hecate often thinks Pippa puts on this show solely for her pleasure. And while she does enjoy the lithe motions and lovely view, Hecate doesn’t much enjoy the fact that it means Pippa is leaving.

Hecate says nothing. She watches the backwards striptease and thinks her heart isn’t strong enough for the new duality of their relationship. She idly wonders if this possibility is the reason she ran as a teenager. She presses against the thought like a tongue pressing against a sore in a mouth and still reaches no definitive conclusion.

Hecate sighs but keeps watching Pippa, her heart aching in the way lonely things in love do, longingly and desperately. She has Pippa’s friendship. And, she has Pippa’s body. Hecate never imagined that those two things would be mutually exclusive.

“Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.” The words shock Hecate; she doesn’t mean to say them. She wants to retract the words as soon as they leave her mouth. But they sit between them, heavy and alive.

Pippa stops mid motion, body bent at the waist. Her face is half-shadowed and soft. She looks approachable and warm. Hecate’s heart lurches in her chest and she looks and looks and looks because she is so rarely afforded the opportunity to see Pippa’s emotions so nakedly. But, Pippa is uncharacteristically quiet. And, her eyes shine brightly with something Hecate doesn’t know how to name.

She straightens but still only half faces Hecate, her body mostly in shadow despite the low light of the lamps they didn’t turn off. “Why do you keep coming back?” And Pippa closes her eyes. Against seeing the answer. Or maybe, against revealing her feelings when she hears the answer. Hecate isn’t sure.

It’s a big question with no easy answer. No answer that won’t inherently change them. But, maybe talking will be better than taking up a particularly bad habit.

“Because you ask me to.” The simplest answer. And true, though not completely. But Pippa’s eyes open and they’re still so soft and they look pleadingly at Hecate and they tug at her heart. “Because I want to.” The truest answer she can manage with Pippa dressed to leave and her laying naked, still wanting, on her bed.

Pippa stands still and watches Hecate for several long moments. Hecate lets her look; she looks back but doesn’t know how to interpret what she’s seeing on Pippa’s face. So she waits for Pippa to say something.

“Hiccup…”

Hope grips her tightly and Hecate’s heart suddenly and insistently wants to explode out of her chest. Pippa has never crossed any part of their friendship into this part of their relationship.

Pippa walks back to the bed and sits slowly. Her hand reaches for Hecate’s and clasps it in a warm grip. She looks at their hands as if really seeing them for the first time.

“I almost made a very big mistake tonight,” Pippa says slowly, as if weighing her words before she speaks them. She looks up at Hecate, and her eyes are soft and warm and so like they look when Pippa calls her friend that it makes Hecate inexplicably choke up. “But coming to you was the right thing.” She nods unconsciously. “It’s always the right thing.”

Hecate swallows roughly and tries to smile at Pippa through her wildly beating heart.

“Can I stay tonight?” Pippa looks at her and Hecate knows she’s nervous by the way her pulse jumps at her throat and the way her hand trembles in hers.

“Will you be here when I wake up?” Hecate wants to just say _yes_ but she has to know that Pippa is asking what she thinks she’s asking.

“Do you want me to be?” Pippa asks slowly. She’s shifted closer to Hecate and her fingers gently push hair behind her ear.

Hecate presses into the touch. “Yes.”

Pippa’s smile is instant. It’s wide and beautiful and Hecate wants to always put that smile on her face. “Yes,” Pippa says and it sounds like a promise.

Pippa banishes her clothes and slips under the covers again. And at the press of skin, Hecate thinks that _this_ she can do. Because this doesn’t feel like war and devastation… _this_ feels like coming home.


End file.
